Forgiveness means it finally becomes unimportant that you hit back.

— Anne Lamott

Forgiveness means it finally becomes unimportant that you hit back. You're done. It doesn't necessarily mean that you want to have lunch with the person. If you keep hitting back, you stay trapped in the nightmare...

— Anne Lamott

For me and most of the other writers I know, writing is not rapturous. In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts.

— Anne Lamott

For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die.

— Anne Lamott

For too long, and despite what people told me, I had fallen for what the culture said about beauty, youth, features, heights, weights, hair textures, upper arms.

— Anne Lamott

God can't clean the house of you when you're still in it.

— Anne Lamott

Grace is a small white butterfly, and life is a semi-trailer careening up 101.

— Anne Lamott

Grace means suddenly you’re in a different universe from the one where you were stuck, and there was absolutely no way for you to get there on your own.

— Anne Lamott

Gratitude begins in our hearts and then dovetails into behavior. It almost always makes you willing to be of service, which is where the joy resides. It means that you are willing to stop being such a jerk. When you are aware of all that has been given to you, in your lifetime and the past few days, it is hard not to be humbled, and pleased to give back.

— Anne Lamott

Grief ends up giving you the two best things: softness and illumination.

— Anne Lamott